


knight on the rim

by larkgrace



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Canon Gay Character, Episode Tag, Gen, Post-Episode s2e05 Crossfire, i love alex danvers and i cried so hard when i watched crossfire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-11
Updated: 2016-11-11
Packaged: 2018-08-30 08:14:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8525518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larkgrace/pseuds/larkgrace
Summary: Alex practices the fine art of avoidance. Winn and Mon-El fumble their way through pep talks.





	

**Author's Note:**

> so i cried like a fucking baby at alex's coming out scene; speaking as a lesbian raised in a homophobic rural community, nothing is more terrifying than confronting your own internalized homophobia, except for having to confront it in front of other people. i was much younger than alex when i had my gay awakening, but it's still super relatable and well-written, and i'm SO EXCITED for her to come out to kara in next week's episode. the writers said that kara is going to react in typical kara fashion, meaning "she loves alex unconditionally but she's bad at communicating and also some disaster will probably interrupt them and alex will think kara hates her but they'll work it out by the end of the episode," and i wanted to pound this out before it happened. this fic was written over the course of two nights in between doing homework and going to protests.
> 
> also, a note on the us election: to my lgbtq community, stay strong. stay alive. we will band together and we will survive, both out of spite and out of love. i'm with you and i love you. my comments are always open if you want to talk, and there is a link to my twitter in my bio; my dms are always open. to my poc, muslim, disabled, immigrant, and trans countrymen (and women, and whatever gender or lackthereof you prefer): you are loved and i am sorry that this country has failed you. we'll keep fighting.

Alex doesn’t go back to her apartment after she leaves the bar. It’s closer than the DEO office, but it’s full of photographs of her mom, her dad, her ex-boyfriends-turned-friends, Kara. Normally they’re a comfort; normally, they’re a reminder of the people who built her, the people she’s fighting to protect, to save.

Right now, she thinks, she can’t handle the glossy photo paper stares. Right now, she thinks, she needs to be Agent Danvers. Agent Danvers gets things done. Agent Danvers gets to the heart of the problem. Agent Danvers isn’t scared shitless by the thought of her own sister’s stare.

Jesus. Kara. She wants to tell Kara. She also wants to throw up, and she can’t even blame it on the beer this time.

The office is running on a skeleton crew this late at night, just a few rookie agents on the graveyard monitor shift and Winn hunched over his station, muttering to himself and scratching something on a sketchpad. Alex feels a flicker of joy when she spots the chess pieces set up next to his monitor; she remembers the toys and knickknacks that covered his desk at CatCo, and hopefully the fact that he’s starting to decorate his station here means he’s settling in well.

“Working late?” she asks, and holds back a smile when Winn jumps and knocks a pen off his desk.

“Alex— _what is it_ with you people and sneaking up on me—should you even be here this late? Don’t you sleep?” Winn splutters, slamming the sketchbook down and reaching for the pencil.

“I just came by to check on a personal project,” Alex says, an easy lie. “What about you?”

“Personal project,” Winn says, and not-so-casually props his elbow up on the sketchpad, obscuring whatever he was working on. “You looking for Kara? ‘Cause I think she went home like an hour ago.”

“No,” Alex says, maybe with too much force. Winn raises an eyebrow. “Well—yes,” she admits, “but no, not right now. I was…actually betting on her not being here.”

Winn leans back in his chair. “Did something happen?”

Alex heaves a sigh. “Sort of,” she says, and hops up to sit on the briefing table. “I just need to have a conversation with her that I’m…not looking forward to.” She swallows, clutches the edge of the table tight. “I need to tell her something important and I’m not sure how she’ll take it.”

“Ah,” he says, “you’re experiencing the Kara Effect.”

“The what?” she says.

“The Kara Effect,” Winn says again. “You know, that thing where suckers like us love her and want her approval, because—she’s _Kara,_ come on. And then we start thinking about what would happen if we messed up, or if she didn’t approve of us anymore, and then the anxiety comes in like a steamroller and the next thing you know you’re having a panic attack in the break room.”

Alex quirks an eyebrow, because _really._

“That last part might just be me,” he admits. “But yeah, join the club.”

Alex heaves a deep breath. “Pretty on the nose, but it could use a better name,” she says.

“Probably,” Winn says. “If it helps, Kara basically thinks you hung the moon, and she already forgave you for literally killing one of her relatives, so I’m pretty sure you’re safe from the super pout.”

Alex bites her cheek. She’d rather not have her current internal conflict be compared to the guilt leftover from murdering Astra, but he means well.

“Thanks,” she says instead. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

As she stands to leave, Winn says, “You know, if you ever want to talk, you know how to find me.”

“I will,” she promises. “This is something I need to tell Kara first, though.”

Winn flashes a thumbs up and twists back to his sketchbook, and Alex briefly contemplates going to the armory and taking her nerves out on one of the target dummies. The armory is down the same hallway as the guest cots, however, and when she passes by the steel door creaks open.

“Agent Danvers,” Mon-El says. “Didn’t expect to see you here this late.”

Alex crosses her arms. Kara trusts Mon-El, but Alex still remembers the careful way Kara held herself while her ribs healed. “I would think you’d be asleep by now. Need a comfier pillow?”

“Are you volunteering?” Mon-El says, and Alex snarls something low and frustrated and turns to leave. He and Kara can make all the noise they want about not all Daxamites being the same, Mon-El is still a pig and Alex will probably never like him.

Alex hears a scuffing noise, and Mon-El says, _“Wait,_ okay, I apologize. I crossed a line. Forgive me, Agent Danvers.”

Alex stops. Raises her eyes to the ceiling. Takes a slow, deep breath. Turns around. Mon-El is slumped against the doorframe, his eyes wide, hand halfway outstretched.

He looks sincerely apologetic, at least. Kryptonians are shit liars in her experience, and he’s close enough for horseshoes and Kryptonite.

“What do you want?” she asks.

“My hearing isn’t as good as Supergirl’s, but it’s good enough,” Mon-El says. “Would you…do you feel like you could talk to me?”

Alex sighs. “I just need to talk to Kara,” she says. “It’s nothing that concerns you or the DEO.” Nothing that concerns Winn, for that matter, or Kara, not really. But she still wants Kara to know. And Winn, eventually. Alex likes the way he’s carving out his own space in their little family.

“Then allow me to talk to you,” Mon-El says. “Briefly. Would you like to come in?” He opens the door slightly, showing a sliver of high concrete walls and steel cots separated by metal screens. Alex makes a mental note to talk to J’onn about setting up a better room.

“I’m fine,” Alex says. “Go ahead and talk.”

“You’re nervous about talking to Kara,” he says. Alex doesn’t get a chance for her protest to leave her mouth; he says, “Your palms are sweating and your heartrate just spiked. You’re nervous. If you’re worried about whatever it is you want to tell her, let me warn you: Kara is probably going to react badly.”

And that—

Is pretty much Alex’s worst nightmare, if she’s being honest.

She has no idea what Martians think about homosexuality—J’onn has never brought it up and Alex isn’t going to ask—but he’s her boss before he’s her friend, and they’ve never let personal conflicts stop them from working together before. She’s not afraid to give any DEO agents who want to start shit a piece of her mind or, if it comes down to it, her fist. If her mother doesn’t take it well…it would hurt, but there’s already been a rift there for more years than Alex cares to remember. She could survive her mother’s disapproval and anger.

But Kara.

Alex flew to _space_ once to keep from losing Kara, and the thought of losing her because of this is nearly enough to send Alex into a fit.

She’s breathing fast and shallow, and her throat feels swollen, and she guesses Mon-El can tell because his eyes go wide and he says, “Alex, breathe! I didn’t mean it like that!”

“Then what _did_ you mean it like,” she snaps. God. Her hands are shaking. When was the last time she was so out of control?

“I mean Kara is a typical Kryptonian,” Mon-El says. “She’s thick-headed and self-centered and her mouth is faster than her brain.”

Alex swallows back the reflexive anger, because she’s already teetering on the edge of her self-control, and it at least sounds like Mon-El has a point somewhere.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” he continues, “but Kara says stupid things when she’s surprised. Winn says you Earthlings have a word for this affliction, this…‘foot-in-mouth syndrome’?” Mon-El shakes his head a little.

He’s as bad as Kara used to be, Alex thinks, and feels her muscles relax a little. “That’s one way to put it,” she concedes. She doesn’t think it’s worth the effort of pointing out that it’s not a real disease at the moment.

“This ailment seems to have been common on Krypton,” Mon-El says. “And Kryptonians have very large feet. Though I am not sure what this has to do with their lack of tact,” he says. “Whatever it is that you are afraid of telling Kara, she will most likely say something that upsets you. She’s done the same to me, and I believe she has also done this to Winn. This does not mean she cares for you any less, Alex Danvers.”

And that’s—

It’s one thing to hear from Winn. He adores Kara. But Mon-El was raised to see the worst in her, and it’s…comforting, in a strange way.

“Do you really think so?” Alex croaks. Just to hear it again.

“She has taken your name in the civialian world, right?” he says. “Names are a source of pride for Kryptonians. It’s one of the things they had in common with Daxam. Our houses, our families, our blood—there is no stronger bond. Kara would not call herself a member of the House of Danvers if she did not love you.”

The House of Danvers. Alex almost snorts; it sounds so ridiculous, but.

 _The House of El,_ she thinks. Kara. Clark. Astra. Clark, who abandoned Kara; Clark, the cousin Kara loves so much she took a beam of Kryptonite to the chest for him. Astra the evil General, Astra the war criminal, Astra who Kara refused to kill, refused to stop loving, because she was family.

And Kara calls her sister. Not adopted, not foster, just sister. Just family.

Alex blinks, hard, but her cheeks are wet anyway. Mon-El, for once, doesn’t comment.

“Thank you,” she says.

“Of course,” he says. “If I may make one more observation?”

“About Kara?” Alex asks.

“About you,” he says. Alex takes a surprised half-step back. “You are a warrior, and a scientist, yes? I’ve seen you in action. You work best in close quarters, when you can tackle a problem with your hands.”

“I guess,” Alex says. He’s certainly not wrong.

“Stop running from Kara,” he says. “Go in there and work it out.”

Alex has nothing to say to that. She doesn’t think she needs to.

“Goodnight, Agent Danvers,” he says, and closes the door.

“Goodnight,” she says, a beat too late, but it’s fine; she knows he can hear anyway.

It’s nearly three in the morning. Kara will be asleep right now, and Alex knows from years of experience that while she’ll wake up for a scream halfway across the city but sleep through her ringtone.

Alex digs out her phone and dials. Once the machine finishes playing back _You’ve reached Kara Danvers, leave a message and I’ll call you back!_ and the long beep, Alex takes a deep breath and says, “Hey, sis. Can we do lunch tomorrow? I want to talk to you.”

**Author's Note:**

> "A knight should always be close to where the action is, meaning it is best used on areas of the board where the opponent's pieces are clustered or close together. Pieces are generally more powerful if placed near the center of the board, but this is particularly true for a knight. A knight on the edge of the board attacks only three or four squares (depending on its exact location) and a knight in the corner only two. The mnemonic phrases 'A knight on the rim is grim' or 'A knight on the rim is dim' are often used in chess instruction to reflect this principle."
> 
> don't worry, alex, kara is totally bi anyway. why would there be such a thing as a heterosexual alien. that's ridiculous.


End file.
